1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to an absorbent coating and more particularly to applying said absorbent coating to fishing tackle where said absorbent coating will absorb a liquid fish attractant or attractants on contact.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It has been widely accepted that fish respond to scented attractants as well as visual stimuli. Many liquid scented attractants are currently being sold on the commercial market. But a continuing problem has been in getting the attractant to stay on the fishing tackle. In order to solve this problem, gelling agents and other thickeners have been used in many commercially available attractants. U.S. Pat. No. 4,927,643 discloses one example of a soluble fish-attractant coating wherein cross-linked polymers are formed and act as gelling agents. But there is no means to enable the gel to stay on the fishing tackle. When oils are used in this gel they must be selected when the gel is made and can not be selected by the fisher person. It would be desirable to select a cross-linked polymer or copolymer that would absorb liquid scented attractants. Liquid scented attractants would function as a plasticizer. One familiar with rubber compounds will be aware of how rubbers can absorb solvents and swell to several times their normal size.
Fishing lures have been made wherein fish attractants are blended into the material they are made from. Several examples of scented attractants that are incorporated into the fishing lure material are disclosed in the Hasting's patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,589,223 and in the Carr patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,245,420. However, natural oils and fish attractants can become rancid. Packaging items that contain liquid fish attractants can leak and become smelly. Scented attractants have limited shelf life. With so many liquid fish attractants on the market, it would be advantageous to make fishing tackles that would accept any liquid fish attractant.
Different fibers and compounds have been added to fishing lures to allow them to absorb liquid fish attractants. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,962,609 (Walker) discloses a fiber coating used to hold liquid scented attractants. Coating fishing lures and hooks with fibers and other natural absorbent materials can detract from from their visual appearance. Many of these coatings depend only on capillary attraction. They are very limited as to what liquids they can hold. Textures of finished products can not be changed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,026,596 to Saotome and U.S. Pat. No. 4,389,513 to Miyazaki clearly show that cross-linked polymers only bond well to porous items when the polymer is formed on an item. Another method must be found to form a strong bond that will not loosen when a plasticizer is applied.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,826,691 to Prochnow discloses the use of a gelatinous membrane film on the surface of a fishing lure wherein said film is blended from mucilaginous polymeric materials and powdered marine life attractants. However, unlike the present invention, all of the polymeric materials disclosed for use in the Prochnow patent are below the gel point since they all dissolve in water.